Many natural food products are harvested with a natural outer covering or peel which must be removed to gain access to the edible interior. Foods with such coverings come from all different categories of food products, e.g., citrus fruit, peaches, tomatoes, potatoes, shrimp, fish, etc. In each instance the edible center of the food is moist and delicate while the covering is a somewhat impervious moisture barrier which may be more or less fragile to tearing or bursting. It is known that in general a rapid scalding action with hot water may loosen a peeling and make it easier to separate from its edible center. There have also been some inventions patented in this general area of technology, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,759,166; 4,569,850; and 4,671,965. These patented inventions generally employ shock treatments of temperature and/or pressure to loosen the peeling. In each instance, however, there are undesirable effects, such as damage to the edible portions of the food, reliance on noncontinuous procedures, complex machinery, etc.
It is an object of this invention to provide a novel, simple, continuous apparatus for removing the outer coverings from food products. It is another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for continuously removing the peelings from citrus fruit without damage to the edible center. Still other objects will appear from the more detailed description which follows.